Nightmares
by The Jesteress
Summary: Billy has woken up to Tommy's screams too many times. He's not going to let his brother go through another tortured night alone. In which Billy helps Tommy during a nightmare and a lot of Tommy's past is revealed (including juvie, Frank and Mary). A little fluff at the end though!


Nightmares

**A/N: Okay so the only different thing is that Tommy lived with the Kaplans after Billy got better from his depression, because this is Tommy centric, with mainly Tommy angst.I'm refraining from Billy angst for now.**

In the months that Tommy lived with the Kaplan family, Billy learned a lot about his soul-twin. Naturally, he found out the trivial stuff first. He loved the colour green, but nothing too minty or it just looks overly sanitary, and not too dark or it's like a forest, and Tommy hates forests, especially camping in them. His favourite season was summer, because _sun, _and it gave him every excuse to go to a beach and run along the ocean, stopping halfway and letting himself sink below the surface of the water for a few moments. That one Billy experienced first-hand when he was ran across the water by Tommy. He found out Tommy's favourite was pizza, followed by any food on the menu, and he hated no food, because its never done anything to him, so why should he hold a grudge?

After getting past the little trivia things, he discovered far more intricate details that made up Tommy. After random late night talks that made no sense on Billy's part, he found out Tommy was raised a Jew, just like Billy, but Tommy had long since lost his faith in God. Not his belief, but he just didn't trust the guy to do right anymore. Anyway, it made it easier at Hanukah as Tommy could help with some of the explaining to Teddy. Billy also discovered that Tommy hates talking about himself. Billy has many theories to explain this one, and judging by everything in Tommy that he knew, he was pretty right. Everyone assumed it was the cliché "people close to me will abandon me, I'm scared," but Billy had a few more details. Tommy was scared of people getting close and finding out the darker side of him. It was a side of Tommy that Billy had seen a few times. The sudden absence of humanity in his radioactive green eyes, the dark smirk when he shared something personal and twisted. He knows its wrong. But he cant help the way he was made. He also expects to be abandoned, constantly surprised by anyone who actually_ choses _to be in his company, and more worryingly, how uncomfortable he gets around affection. It's a totally new concept to him, which scares Billy. He found out a while ago that Frank and Mary Shepherd weren't the nicest of people. Divorced, mother an alcoholic, father a manipulative bastard, he could go on, but Tommy hadn't exactly been generous in his information.

Anyway, point is, a lot of things can be revealed about a person when you live with them. But with Tommy, the biggest secrets and quirks came at night.

The amount of times Billy awoke to noise coming from Tommy's room was worrying. Sometimes, it was just him getting a drink, but that was a rare occasion. Usually, it was shouting.

"I can go faster, I promise…"

"Don't touch me…"

"Let. Me. OUT!"

Out of context babble that was sometimes followed by more of the same and other times by a quiet sob. It never lasted more than a few minutes. Most of the time, the nightmare, whatever it was, was broken by Tommy waking up and going for a run, the time irrelevant to a boy who could be in another country in minutes. Other times, it was broken at the start of a strangled scream before he shot up and could be heard pacing the hallways. Billy was a light sleeper, it was hard for him not to notice these things, but come the morning after, he never once mentioned them.

Of the things he had discovered about Tommy, the most important was that discussing his own tragedies and angst had him running for the hills or getting extremely uncomfortable and agitated. Obviously he had never had anyone to rant to before, so when someone starts to encourage him to share his feelings, his default is "I don't have feelings."  
So Billy never said a word. He would make it known that he knows, the glances shared over breakfast, a silent plea for some indication of what level of okay he was. Usually he received a nod in response, and if not, an eyeroll.

The nightmares weren't every night. At most twice a week. They had never been a problem before, but holding in feelings as deep and intense as Tommy's can be dangerous. Espceially to himself.

So for the past 2 weeks, Billy has been waking up to full on legitimate screams of pure agonising terror, a kind he never heard from Tommy. He tried to go on as always, to stay in bed and just try to block his ears and wait for the moment to pass, but he had been counting. The moments had been getting longer and longer, the most recent one being a 10 minute long scream fest. The only reason Billy heard it and nobody else did was a) because he was the only light sleeper besides Tommy, and b) because of the little hole in the wall connecting their rooms.

It eventually got to the point where Billy realised that it wasn't healthy. So what do you do when someone's mentally unwell in the Kaplan household? You go to Rebecca.

"Mom, quick psychology question…" Billy began, sitting beside his mother on the sofa while the majority of the Kaplan household were at school or on a shopping trip. Rebecca's head snapped up immediately at the notion of her practice.

"Fire away, Billy!" she enthused, buzzing with psychology knowledge.

"Why do recurring nightmares happen?"

Rebecca nodded at the question, pausing for a moment to sip her early morning coffee thoughtfully.

"Good one. Well, there's a big possibility that there's some stress in your life that your not dealing with, and your subconscious is attacking you in your sleep to try and get you to notice that you need to deal with it. If you don't fix the problem, the dream is likely to continue recurring. It could also happen because of something that happens every day, a daily event causing you to trigger that nightmare, but that's quite rare," she explained, sipping her coffee once again, adjusting herself so that she was facing Billy head on.

"It's can also be a side-effect of a trauma. Recurring nightmares, and night-terrors, are common in PTSD sufferers. If that's the case its likely the person needs to see a counsellor and sort out that problem, get rid of the stress from the event. Why do you ask?" she inquired, a worried look on her face as she assumed the worst. Billy shrugged non-committedly.

"Just a character in this TV show, mom, don't worry," Billy assured, starting to make his way towards the staircase to escape building a big li to his mother. She sighed as he walked away.

"It's Tommy isn't it? I heard him screaming last night when I went to let the cat out from our room."

Billy didn't speak. He didn't have to. He just remained frozen on the staircase, a little thankful that he wasn't the only one to want Tommy to get some help.

"Talk to him, Billy. You're his… brother, somehow. As far as I know, we're the only family he's got left that care for him, the only people to help him out here. He'll talk more at ease with you, trust me, I'm a psychologist." Billy smiled at the ongoing family gag and carried on up the stair towards his room, preparing himself for the googling he was about to partake in, and the mission for tonight.

**Operation: Tommy-ception.**

Billy's eyes snapped open suddenly at the noise of screaming. He had tried to stay awake, he really had, but despite his best efforts he had fallen asleep on top of his laptop, now about a billion random letters face-typed into the search bar of google.

He got up from his chair and quickly started moving out of his room towards Tommy's stopping outside for a moment to ready himself. He took in a deep breath, wincing at the shouting of his twin that he could now barely hear thanks to the practically soundproof walls. In that moment, it suddenly hit home the severity of Tommy's mind plague. He never went into any detail about his past, his parents and the events of juvie. It was safe to assume that nobody but him and the doctors knew the truth about what his life there was like, so Tommy had been soldiering on with a heavy weight pushing down on his shoulders and ripping at his dreams, all alone in his struggle. Billy shook his head in a little fit of anger. How could they have been so blind to what he goes through?

Billy shoved those self-degrading thoughts aside for a moment as he opened the door to Tommy's room, thinking he was fully prepared for what he was about to witness.

As per usual, Billy was wrong.

He has been weirdly empathic for as long as he could remember. It was how he was raised, to know that others feel horrible things and we should always try and understand it, take a walk in their shoes, feel what they feel. It was a talent that Billy had gotten a little overdeveloped. So when he looked upon the vibrating form of the white haired speedster, his heart lurched.

Tommy was sitting bolt upright, radioactive green eyes staring wide in front of him in a unnerving mixture of fear, shock and pain. He gripped his arms across his stomach madly, knees pulled up to his chest and body trembling at a dangerous, so much so that his entire bed was shaking and maybe the floor a little too. Billy looked at him for just a moment, suddenly seeing the turmoil that Tommy went through on the outside rather than assuming what it was on the inside. He felt his stomach flip madly and his heart sink way down to hell, guilt and sadness weighing on him, suffocating him like an avalanche. He felt tears brim in his eyes, a cocktail of emotions bubbling in his gut, threatening to erupt at any given moment.

Then he took the initiative.

"Tommy," he said quietly, voice trembling, barely heard over Tommy's gasping shuddery breaths. The screaming and shouting had stopped for now, but Tommy look in twice the amount of pain, head now bowed and hand gripping his hair at the roots. Billy took a few steps forward.

"Tommy, wake up…"

Tommy made no move to respond, a little strangled cry escaping through his gritted teeth and echoing around in Billy's brain. He took the few final steps closer to Tommy's bed, now within touching distance of his twin. He reached out tentatively.

"Tommy. You need to wake-" he broke off abruptly, Tommy's hand whipping away from his body at breakneck speed and throwing Billy across the room the moment the witches fingertips skimmed his bear shoulders. Billy cried out at the sudden aggression, back jarring as he hit the wall. His gut throbbed in protest, back aching too from the impact. He groaned involuntarily, looking up at his twin again with tears in his eyes. He couldn't help it. Tommy was in so much pain and confusion that he would actually hurt Billy – his own brother. That was enough to send anyone to tears.

"Don't… fucking _touch me,_" Tommy growled, now looking at Billy in the darkness of the room, a murderous glare in his eyes. He was shaking all the more violently now, scaring Billy half to death.

"Tommy! STOP!" he shouted in vain, pushing himself to his feet, "You're safe now!"

Tommy just stared, angry and confused, making the mistake of putting his hand out to the beside lamp to steady himself as he rose from his bed. The lamp shattered instantly, shards of glass and ceramic from the stand flying everywhere, some cutting Billy across the cheeks and other making their marks on Tommy himself.

"THOMAS SHEPHERD."

Tommy froze. He looked at Billy intently, tilting his head curiously, moonlight forcing its way through the gap in the blinds and catching his eyes, making him look like menacing.

"You're okay. I'm here. It's Billy."

He took several unbroken steps forward, praying internally that Tommy didn't notice the shaking and breaking of his voice as he had made his tiny speech. By the time he was face-to-face with his brother, he had stopped vibrating. He just looked at Billy.

"… Billy?" he said, voice cracking child-like at the end of the name. Billy breathed a sigh of deep relief, throwing his arms round Tommy without any second thought to his own safety. Tommy didn't hug back. Billy didn't expect him too. But Tommy didn't pull away either. He pulled away slowly, guiding Tommy back to sit on the bed with him, not once losing contact with his brother. Tommy opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but the only sound that left his mouth was an uncontrolled sob. He began to shake again, not a speedster shake, but the shake of a person who is trying desperately to be strong, someone who just cant hold in what they're feeling anymore. He gripped the side of the bes and closed his eyes, trying to steady himself, Billy gripping his arms tightly the whole time.

"It's okay, Tommy… I'm here, its okay…"

The words may have completely gone over Tommy's head in his current state, but it helped Billy calm himself down just as much. They sat like that for a while, Tommy taking deep breaths in while Billy just sat there, sometimes gripping his hand and other times whispering words of comfort. It was a good half hour before anyone spoke.

"Sorry you cut your face, nerd," Tommy said softly, Billy letting a tiny chuckle out before releasing his grip on his brother, the two of them lying down in Tommy's bed now, both emotionally exhausted.

"S'okay, Tom."

There was an easy silence that descended upon them after that.

"You know you're gonna have to talk to me about it now, don't you?"

Tommy didn't respond, just sighing and rolling onto his side to face Billy, the darkness obscuring half his face.

"Look, I have very few emotions," Tommy started, unable to deny that he had emotions anymore after that little breakdown, "so don't get all sentimental on me. I'll talk, but only as compensation for throwing you against the wall and cutting your face. This is payment only, Kaplan."

Billy smiled a little and nodded, but knowing deep in his mind that the rest of the night would be filled with nightmares of the very real kind, true stories that would never be fictionalised. Tommy started simple.

"I was born March 17th, but you know that, in Springfield, New Jersey. _Frank _and _Mary _weren't exactly happy about my arrival. For one thing, they were 19, and for another, they weren't exactly getting along. Needless to say they got a divorce. I was 2."

The story started quite simple, maybe happy even. Tommy lived with his mother, Mary, leading a semi-normal life, money issues, sure, but it was the highest point of the story.

"I was 7 when he started coming back. Dad, I mean. He was pissed at mom, who knows why, he was a psychopath. He would barge in and demand shit. Mom wasn't shy, she snapped right back, but lets clarify my dad is a 6'1 block of muscle and my mom 5'5. It was never much of a competition."

And that was the moment Billy started to get a lump in his throat. He swallowed it down, for Tommy, but he was thankful for the dark lighting just in case he did spring a leak.

The story went on much the same, gradually darker, fights more frequent, more physical over the next 2 years.

"He'd threaten me, sure, but he'd never catch me. I'd be out of the house as quick as a snail could be. Around 9 was when my mom started the drinking, though. I guess that was my fault. I was getting to be a brat."

"It couldn't have been your fault, Tommy-"

"It kind of was. Not entirely, that woman turned mad here, but I helped. I was 9, getting to be a rebel, a hyper kid who none of the teachers ever knew what to do with. They'd get frustrated and send letters to my mom about how I should get tested for stuff, but we didn't have the money. So she drank. The cheapest, nastiest stuff out there. Whenever she wasn't at a bar she's be staggering round the house and throwing things at walls, pissed at the world. Naturally, it was always my fault. Then dad would come and I'd be gone, usually pitching up with a 'friend'."

Billy frowned at his tone. Whatever friend meant, he didn't like the sound of it.

"Anyways, I was 11 when I got my powers. Dad was inches away from me, bout to take his first swing, but I just ran out the house, snail pace as usual, then about a block away I sped up. The world got blurry and my eyes watered, but hey, a few minutes later I was in New York. They filed a missing persons report, I wasn't found for a week, trudging long the road back home."

There seemed to be a lot of repeats. Mom getting drunk, throwing things, Tommy messing up in school, but whatever happened it was never a positive. Things really changed when Tommy hit his teen years.

"Went to Juvie at 13. Fighting, what else. The kid was okay in the end, but adding it to a record of "okay in the ends" made that less convincing. So for the next year I was in and out. At 14, though, they found out about the mutant thing."

Apparently, if you discover your powers as young as Tommy did, you tended to egt pretty advanced quite quickly. So Tommy had been a mutant rebel classed as a rebel for years due to his excellent skills at hiding these powers.

"See, that past year mom had been better. She was drinking less, a hell of a lot less. Wouldn't be surprised if she went to a counsellor next. But we still argued a lot. Back and forth. Though sometimes, and this was rare remember, we'd actually talk. Like heart to heart real mother-son talk. Then the moment passed."

Tommy's eyes got minutely mournful there. Like he craved that mothers love that he never really had, that he caught glimpses of, but never enough to hold.

"So when she found out I was a mutant, she cried. She cried, and then she drank. Course, I was sent to a mutant juvie. Not THE mutant juvie, just your standard one. I went to two, met Lisa in the second, and then only a week after being released I blew up my school."

"Why?" Billy blurted out, constantly confused over whether this was an accident or not.

"Why'd ya think? The teacher was an asshole. After being in mutant juvies so long I kind of forgot it wasn't common to blow shit up. Actually, I didn't even know I _could _blow stuff up, let alone a school. Once _they _found out I could blow things up, I was suddenly an asset. A weapon."

Tommy'ds eyes dropped, his voice lowering and a slight growl in the back of his throat. His storytelling changed here. Before he was nostalgic, melancholy and a little sad as he thought of a life he might have known. But now? He was reliving the darkest parts of himself. He was telling the tales of survival, of pain, of anger.

"I had 72 surgeries in those 9 months. 196 trials, 50 test-and-effect drugs forced down me. Course, the anaesthesia never worked. I burned through it. And you know what the worst of it was, Billy?"

HE stared at his twin, a red fury in his eyes. Billy shook his head in response, both scared and curious for the next part.

"I wasn't the only one there. I was their favourite, their _prize weapon, _but I wasn't the only one. They had a funny little scheme going. Train kids up, sell them as bodyguards or soldiers to the highest bidder. Kids came and went, toughest kids and the weakest, and then there was me. I had a bajillion bidders after me. They'd watch sometimes, the surgeries or the trials. But the doctors always declined. "He's reserved" they'd say. I never found out who for, but all evidence points to the government. I was essentially inhuman, a living weapon for the most powerful person or persons to claim me as their own. I coudlnt do anything. Half the time I was power-dampened, and they _owned _me anyway, thanks mom and dad," he paused, "I never did thank you for getting me out, bro. So… gracias."

Tommy went on a little longer. He explained the tests, the details, the surgeries and the pain, the needles that he hated oh so much. The fights that would be set up or would break out randomly between inmates. Then with that came the most chilling, yet somehow unsurprising confession of them all.

"I've killed people Billy. 4 people, kids. I'm not even sure if it was self-defence. More like them defending themselves against me…" Tommy admitted quietly, a gentle tone and sad drop on his words. Billy could barely stop himself for giving Tommy an affectionate hand to grip.

"It's okay now."

"Avengers don't kill."

"It's okay."

"God, I'm such an asshole."

"Its okay."

"Please, Billy, don't. Just… I know. But it doesn't take away what I've done."

Billy just smiled at him, tears brimming and a couple tumbling down his cheeks. He pulled Tommy into a long embrace, the other twin tensing at the sudden contact.

"I know. I know what you've done. But that was necessary. It's a different ball game now, you've got us. Me, Teddy, Kate, everyone. You _had _to kill before because you were alone, but now we're here."

Tommy smirked.

"What did I say about getting sentimental, man?"

They laughed a little , chuckling as they let out all the negative emotions form those memories and words that had been shared between them.

"Just for the record, I would never help you kill someone. But I wouldn't stop you if he went for the throats of those experimenting bastards again, Tommy. I wouldn't even blame you."

The next morning saw a rugged Teddy Altman waking from his slumber in a dazed state, hair like a haystack and muscles aching from an awkward sleeping position. His first instinct was to find Billy, so he staggered elegantly up and went in search of the witch, almost walking past the open door on Tommy's room, but he backtracked immediately. Sure, Billy learned a lot about Tommy from living with him, but Teddy was there too. He knew for a fact that Tommy never slept with the door open, and was almost never awake and downstairs at this time. If he was up, he would have left via the window for a run, apparently it made him feel more badass.

Teddy pushed open the door a little more, entering the dark abode of the less romantic of the Maximoff twins (junior). What he saw was the most shocking thing Teddy had ever encountered.

His boyfriend and his boyfriends twin were sprawled out with their limbs across one another, both snuggled under the sheets of Tommy's bed. They were sleeping peacefully, Billy muttering something in his sleep about flower petals, and Tommy almost drooling from out the corner of his mouth. Tommy "I don't do hugs" "I don't have feelings" Shepherd, was like a little puppy beside a slightly more adorable puppy. He had never been more shocked than he was in that moment. He heard a shuffling noise behind him and turned to see a bedraggled Rebecca Kaplan, the only other early riser in the house. She peeked under Teddy's arm as the shapeshifter was too tall for her to peer over, and spotted the boys immediately, breathing a sigh.

"Finally…" she muttered, looking thoroughly relaxed as she strode away to go fetch some coffee. Teddy shook his head in confusion, smiling as he looked once again at the sleeping twins, wishing his phone wasn't broken so he could take a picture.

It may seem juvenile, but Teddy was ignorant to the situation.

He along with the rest of the world would carry on with their daily lives, compete unaware of the extreme tragedies that unfolded there that previous night, oblivious to the depth of Tommy's pain and Billy's understanding. They would never know. Never.

And for that, the twins were thankful.

Some things were meant to be shared.

**A/N: Okay so that was basically me fulfilling my angsty needs (ily angsty tommy) and also me sorting out my headcanons for Tommy's past which are very jumbled. Thanks for coping with my rambles, please leave a constructive piece of criticism if theres something I need to improve on (probs wont correct spelling mistakes) and what you liked! PLS REVIEW I HAVE NO LIFE! **

**TJ out.**


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